


the chances we create (ring more true)

by roseandthorns28



Category: Avengers Assemble (Cartoon)
Genre: Avengers Assemble s02e09 The Dark Avengers, Fluff, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Missing Scenes, Steve has enough faith for both of them, Tony has doubts, dumb dorks in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 03:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandthorns28/pseuds/roseandthorns28
Summary: Even in a world altered by the reality stone, under the will of the Squadron, in a world where they had no memory of each other, Steve and Tony found a way to each other. But unburdened with years of assumptions and presumptions, their relationship progressed into a new direction.The question is, do those developments between them hold true even when they've gotten their reality back to normal?





	the chances we create (ring more true)

**Author's Note:**

> title stolen shamelessly from 'If You Were a Sailbot' by Katie Melua. 
> 
> Thanks a lot to [ sadisticsparkle ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadisticsparkle/works) for beta-ing for me. 
> 
> Lemme know what you think!

“Express-o delivery for Mr. Stark,” Steve knocks on the doorway to the lab, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand and a slight grin on his lips. After what feels like forever, it's so comforting to see Tony back in his element.

“That joke's getting old, Steve. Almost as old as you,” Tony teases, swivelling around on his chair. But there’s something wrong with his smile. It’s brittle, a little forced. 

This day has been emotionally taxing on all of them, to see this other side of themselves, of how easily they could have been led to another path, a much much darker one. But while the fact that they all fought against it, fought for what’s right fills him with confidence and surety about his team’s heart being in the right place, for someone like Tony, it was a glimpse into what could have happened if he gave into his darker impulses and Steve knows he must be stuck in a cycle of self-recrimination and guilt. 

Some days it seems like Tony has no faith in himself at all. That’s okay, Steve has enough faith for the both of them. 

“Still thinking about it?” 

“Mm, in a way,” Tony says with a shrug, accepting the coffee and turning around to flick through some files. Steve’s gotten good at telling when Tony’s actually working, when he’s pretending to work to not talk about something, or when he’s giving the illusion of working even though he really wants to get something off his chest but won’t make the first move to talk about it. 

“If you’re thinking about the effects of the Reality Stone you know that – ” 

“Actually, no. Surprisingly, our brief foray into supervillainy wasn’t what I was thinking about. I mean, not exactly.” 

“What’s on your mind, genius?” 

“A different kind of foray.” Tony glances over at Steve where he’s leaning against the console in a blink-and-you-miss-it movement. 

Oh. That. 

 

~

 

Tony had never thought he’d be meeting the Captain like this. He’d be lying if he said he never thought he would come face to face with the nameless, faceless vigilante wreaking havoc on Shield and any related shadow agencies. But he’d imagined it as him finally tracking down the elusive mystery man and – well, he hadn’t gotten that far. 

He’d never thought that The Captain would be the one coming to him. 

“I’ve seen you on the news,” are the first words he says to Tony and despite his surprise at his super secret lair being infiltrated by another,  _ seriously JARVIS were you on a coffeebreak? _ , he can’t help but preen a little in front of the square jawed vigilante. Especially when he stands in front of Tony with his deep voice and bright blue eyes, encased in spandex that leaves little to the imagination. There’s his signature shield strapped to his back, and with his shoulders squared he looks like something that belongs on propaganda posters, not hiding his  _ all of that _ from the law and media alike.

“Oh? And did you like what you saw?” 

“A bit too flashy for my taste,” The Captain scoffs even as he comes closer. His eyes are moving along Tony’s armour and he straightens up a bit more. He knows appreciation when he sees it, regardless of what Cap - ok, not a bad nickname but weird - says.

“Au contraire, I think you’re not flashy enough. What’s the point in being a supervillain if people don’t even know your name?” 

“I’m not a supervillain. Nor do I aspire to be one. I’m just trying to do –” 

“Oh, please don’t say ‘ _ do the right thing _ ’,” Tony replies, rolling his eyes with his best impression of The Captain’s deep voice. “Every villain thinks he’s doing the right thing. It’s boring. I, on the other hand, just want to have some fun!” 

“That’s not what the evidence tells me.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“You don’t just blow things up for the sake of it. Although, you do tend to blow things up quite a lot. But even so, it’s all carefully calculated. You’ve not let any civilians get hurt in the process, your tactics have a zero-fatality rate, other than the flashy showdowns with the Squadron, you only target agencies or organisations that have their fingers in some very dirty pies. You  _ care _ .” 

“Blasphemy!” 

“If I didn’t think so I wouldn’t be here.” 

“So what are you here for? You wanna partner up? Turn this into a buddy cop movie?” 

“No. I need your technical expertise.” 

“Couldn’t find a hacker off of the dark web to do your dirty work for you?” 

“I don’t just need some hacker. I need a genius.” 

“Well, now you’ve got me intrigued, Captain. Tell me what is it I can do for you?” 

“So you’ll help?” 

“Mmm, depends.” 

“On what?” 

“Only if you’ll make it worth my while.” Tony declares with a smirk and the answering heat in The Captain’s eyes is something to explore later. For now, they have an agreement to come to.

 

~

 

“Do you want to talk about it? What happened between us?” Steve asks. This moment feels more important than the one where he’d held the reality stone in the machine, trusting it –and himself– to turn the world the right side around and fix everything the Squadron had changed. 

“What? No! I mean, there’s nothing to talk about, right? The reality stone flipped everything upside down, topsy turvy, made things real that couldn’t have happened in a million years, I mean you going bad? Ha! Pull the other one! So, yeah, yeah, no I get it. It’s absurd, right?” Tony says, waving a dismissive hand. 

The look in Tony’s eyes is so fragile – as if a wrong word could break him – and Steve thinks for the thousandth time that Tony has  _ no _ idea how expressive his eyes can be. People often say about eyes being the windows to the soul but Tony’s eyes are a window to his heart, no matter what words spew out of his mouth. 

And his heart seems to rest on the tip of a needle right now; as if it’s on the precipice of shattering. 

He catches Tony’s wrist before he can withdraw it and with it himself, his hold gentle, thumb running across his wrist. 

“Actually, I like to think of it as us finding each other even across realities.” 

Tony looks at him with wide blinking eyes before he huffs out a laugh. “Jeez, you’re such a sap.” 

Steve would have to be dumb as a rock to not hear the sheer relief in his wavering voice. In response, he brings Tony’s wrist to his lips and kisses the soft skin there. 

“I think if today showed us one thing it is that underneath it all, we’ll always be the same people we’ve always been, no matter what reality. And maybe not everything was completely horrible there. Say, have you ever thought of changing your colour scheme?” Steve ends with a tease. 

Tony makes an offended noise and pulls his hand away from Steve’s grip, smacking him on the chest. “Shut up. You love my flashy colour scheme.” 

_ Yes, I do. Only because I love you so much _ , he wants to say but even this much has to be overwhelming for Tony and he doesn’t want to spook him. Not to mention, it’s too early for those kinds of declarations and who knows what Tony feels… 

“Sure, Shellhead. Whatever you say.” 

“So, when you talked about bringing some things back can one of them be kissing?” 

“You only have to ask.” 

“Well, this is me asking.” Tony replies, turning around to face Steve head on, tilting his face up. 

Steve cups Tony’s cheek and leans down with a soft smile to kiss him. It feels like coming home. 

“This is totally different from how our first kiss went before.” Tony mutters against Steve’s lips when he goes again for a second, then third. 

 

~ 

 

The first time they kiss, they’re in the middle of an argument, as they mostly are. It’s not even that important, that heated an argument. Some might even call it bickering.

The kiss though, that is a million-trillion times more important than anything they’d been arguing about. It’s frantic, rushed, passionate, it’s weeks of unsaid tension exploding into a supernova.

“Never done that before,” Cap,  _ Steve _ pants out just as they pull apart. 

“What? Kissed a man or kissed another villain?” 

“Kissed someone like that just to shut them up.” 

“Guess you haven’t been arguing too long with me.” 

“Don’t think that’s it.” 

Before Tony can ask anything else, The Captain – Steve – is kissing him again, his broad palm holding Tony’s head in place as he kisses him deeply, pressing him against the console, and Tony loses track of everything but the feeling of Steve around him, against him, within him.

It doesn’t take long for it to become a common feature of their relationship. For arguments to devolve into heavy make out sessions, for the other to just “drop by” without having any major need to, for their talks to turn to more personal topics, for their touches to become something – dare he say – soft and friendly rather than fiery and spontaneous. Not that the passion isn’t there, it’s always there. 

It doesn’t take long for them to be a  _ thing _ . 

They never sit down for a DTR talk, not that he would even think about broaching the subject, but it works. They grow close even despite the fact that there are days where Steve will be a closed book, staring at the New York skyline with something wistful and melancholic, as if hiding some great loss. There are days when Tony’s anxieties and fears get too obvious and he shuts Steve out, can’t seem to trust him enough to let him in despite how much some corner of his brain begs him to. There are days when they’re both busy with their own things and secretive about their plans, when they go do their own solo act and stay out of contact for a long time. 

But in the end they always seek each other out. 

 

~ 

 

The knock on the door startles the both of them out of the comfortable cocoon they’re both in, Tony’s head on Steve’s shoulder, the latter playing with his fingers. 

He’s always thought Tony’s hands were entrancing, to watch them move as he talked, tinker with his toys, build, craft, create, skittering quick and spiderlike over keyboards, manipulating holograms. They’re calloused, strong, yet long and nimble. His sketchbook is a testament to his fascination, figure studies turning into pages after pages of Tony’s hands, his eyes, his smile. 

“Ugh JARVIS, tell whoever it is, to come back later. I’m not in the mood.” 

“I’m afraid Agent Romanoff insists.” 

“God, even my AI is scared of her,” Tony grumbles as he pulls away from Steve and climbs out of bed, taking all the warmth with him as he puts on the nearest pair of pants. 

“Hold your horses! I’m coming!” He calls out at the second round of knocking. 

Steve gets up as well, putting on his clothes with a soldier’s efficiency even as he takes a moment to appreciate an irate shirtless Tony (and his backside) stomping over to the door. 

“What?” Steve hears Tony ask just as he’s pulling his tshirt on. 

“Team movie night. Mandatory. Get your butt in there. And tell Steve too, I can’t seem to find him in his room.”  Natasha says just as Steve comes up into view behind Tony. 

“We’ll be there,” Steve tells her with a nod. It’s good that they’re having some time together, all of them, just to unwind and strengthen those bonds. They all need it. 

She raises an eyebrow, glancing between Steve and Tony before smirking. “About time,” she adds, turning around. “Don’t take too long or Thor and Hulk’s argument about the flavour of popcorn might just devolve into a wrestling match. Again.”. 

 

~

 

Natasha doesn’t look too surprised by the development, not like she had when Steve had first shown himself in the flipped reality world. 

Tony must confess he’d taken an unholy amount of delight in seeing the gathered villain’s faces when The Captain had stepped out from the shadows, following his shield only by a few seconds.  

When Tony had approached him about his itch, Steve had promised he’d stand by him. But even so, he’d been a bit nervous about The Captain deciding to be a no-show and essentially washing his hands off of Tony’s frankly crazy theory. 

But then, not only had Steve backed his play, but also steered them towards a more satisfying conclusion, his similar doubts and concerns, his support had helped Tony access a conviction deep within him, a deep rooted faith in the people gathered around him. 

The steadfast love he held in his heart for Steve that had probably been the reason he couldn’t have stayed away from the Captain even if he wanted to. 

_ “Told ya if you fell backwards, I’d catch you.”  _  He knows now with more certainty that that fact will remain true no matter what reality, no matter what universe. 

“You know, you can go on ahead. Might need a minute to get something appropriate to wear.” Tony says, as he fights with the recalcitrant tshirt he’s trying to put on. 

He feels hands on his waist as Steve smooths down the material freeing Tony’s head from the collar and he sees the blond smiling down at him. 

“No, together.” Together. That seems to be the theme for this evening.

“Alright, old man. Together. Like always.” Tony relents with a grin, leaning forward to kiss him. 

They leave the room with linked hands, brushing shoulders, and smiles on their faces. 


End file.
